Capacidad de captación de energía de los paneles solares

With urban traffic problems many people accept that there is a need for something to be done. A UK survey conducted in 1991 found that 95 percent of respondents agreed with the statement “traffic congestion and pollution is a serious problem in our larger towns and cities” and 92 percent of respondents agreed that “urban traffic problems are going to get worse, and something major needs to be done about them” (Jones, 1991).

While it is one thing to recognise a problem, it is another to put a strategy into place to address the problem. The instruments regarded as being the most effective at reducing traffic congestion, such as road pricing, parking charges and placing physical restrictions on the number of car parking spaces, are also those which people are most opposed to. This unpopularity makes the measures difficult to introduce (Enoch, 2002). Research carried out in Newcastle and Cambridge found that people were far more opposed to measures of restraint (road-user charging, increased parking charges and zone access controls) than they were to public transport improvements. In Newcastle, over half of the survey respondents found the three restraint measures to be either “fairly” or “totally” unacceptable, while the figures were slightly lower in Cambridge (Thorpe et al, 2000).

Schade and Schlag (2003) state that reducing parking space gains low levels of acceptability, but the least accepted measures are those incorporating fees for either parking cars and to an even greater extent, fees for driving cars either through the use of distance based pricing or congestion pricing. Button and Verhoef (1998) add that there is little evidence of public acceptance of high parking fees and they tend to be evaded except in the face of heavy

policing and transactions costs. Interviews conducted by Rye and Ison (2005) highlighted several key issues regarding the introduction of employee charging. The importance to staff of a parking charge cannot be understated. One interviewee said “from the staff side it is more emotive than pay”. It is also argued, however, that because parking policies already exist in many cities, the extension to regulatory parking policies may be easier than introducing a completely new system, for example electronic road pricing (Verhoef et al, 1995).

It is important to remember that varying levels of acceptance can be found in different places because of local conditions and the impact of any potential schemes on a specific area.

Different people travelling for a range of purposes in varying circumstances may well react to parking controls in different ways (Coombe et al, 1997a). Varying levels of acceptance and effectiveness were found in the research comparing Newcastle and Cambridge (Thorpe et al, 2000).

A potential way around this difficulty is to utilise a traffic restraint measure as an integral part of a wider package of measures to deal with problems (Jones, 1991, Thorpe et al, 2000, Ison and Wall, 2002). Jones found that this approach significantly increased public willingness to contemplate traffic restraint and highlighted three elements to the package approach:

A simple but fair method of vehicle restriction;

Improvements in public transport, and;

Some re-allocation of road space (e.g. new cycle or bus facilities, extra space for pedestrians or for residents’ parking).

Four elements to a package of proposals to deal with congestion were identified by Palmer (1996) as being:

Constructing additional road space;

Using existing road space more efficiently, including better information for drivers and better enforcement of parking restrictions;

Shifting demand to alternative modes, by increasing investment for public transport and by implementing changes to increase the relative cost of cars, including increasing parking charges;

Restraining and managing the demand for transport, of which a parking policy is seen to be an increasingly important instrument.

The surveys in Newcastle and Cambridge also investigated the perceived acceptance and effectiveness of packages of measures. The four packages of measures investigated were:

Road-user charging and increased parking charges;

Zone-access control and improved public transport;

Improved public transport and road-user charging;

• Increased parking charges and improved public transport. In both Cambridge and Newcastle the two most acceptable packages were improved public transport and road-user charging and increased parking charges and improved public transport (Thorpe et al, 2000).

Research carried out across four European sites (Athens, Como, Dresden and Oslo) investigated the perceived acceptability and effectiveness of a “strong” package and a

“weak” package of traffic reduction strategies. The strong package contained measures to charge motorists by implementing a toll cordon, increasing parking charges and increasing fuel taxes as well as allocating the revenue to lower labour taxes and to invest in capacity extension of known bottlenecks. The weak package was designed to be more acceptable and included the same charging mechanisms, but to a lesser extent and used the revenues to lower fixed vehicle taxes, invest in known bottlenecks and improve the quality of public transport. The surveys found that the weak package was significantly more acceptable than the strong package at all four of the case study sites but high levels of acceptance were not found for either package. In terms of perceived effectiveness there was no significant difference between the two packages overall (Schade and Schlag, 2003). The research does not however, enable the perceived acceptability of effectiveness of each element of the package to be identified so the impact of increasing parking charges on their own or with revenue allocation cannot be seen.

Another important element of the package approach is that the finance raised should be used to improve alternative modes and the physical environment (Jones, 1991, Ison and Wall, 2002). This is also recognised by the Government in the 1998 White Paper on the Future of Transport in reference to workplace parking levies. The DETR (1998, p.117) state that “a vital element in the effectiveness of the policy will be the use made of the proceeds to improve transport choice.”

In surveys in Newcastle and Cambridge the level of acceptance when increasing parking charges was much greater when there was a guarantee that the revenue generated was allocated to projects which improved transport. Such projects included improving public transport, improving the urban environment, improving cycling facilities and maintaining and improving existing roads (Thorpe et al, 2000).

Ison and Wall (2002) found that improvements to public transport, including improving reliability, increasing the frequency of provision and reducing fares, formed the three most popular responses when respondents to a survey were asked to hypothetically allocate revenues raised through a workplace parking levy.

Other important uses of revenue from workplace parking charges are related to improving the standard of the car parks at the site, for example through CCTV investment, car park refurbishment, better lighting and signage, barriers and card readers (Rye and Ison, 2005).

Rye and Ison (2005) offer six factors to assist the implementation of parking charges at the workplace. They are:

There need to be clear, site specific reasons for introducing parking charging.

Consultation will take some time but it should not be expected that it will resolve all opposition; however, opposition will reduce, after the scheme is introduced.

Significant investment is required in parking control systems, but this will be recouped through the revenue raised within one to two years.

Charges are low, income related and applied with few exemptions.

Those exemptions that are made are justified by clear and transparent criteria.

The funds raised are ring-fenced for improvements in parking, security and alternative transport to the site.

Linked to Rye and Ison’s first point is the situation that parking strategies are often only introduced when there is a problem to be addressed. In terms of a parking charge, the authors add that it appears to be important that there is the existence of a significant catalyst for change for implementing a charge for car parking at the workplace. This is supported by Enoch and Potter (2003), in relation to Travel Plans in the UK, when they state that companies often only begin to consider changing employee travel behaviour when faced with a situation such as congestion or a lack of parking spaces, or indeed when pressured to do so by a Local Authority.

The research identifies that the package approach is both the most effective and acceptable way of introducing a new policy incorporating a measure such as parking pricing.

Acceptability and effectiveness can be seen to be related – if a scheme is accepted by the users then it is more likely to work well than a strategy with strong opposition.

2.17 Conclusions

The literature review has shown that surface access at airports is central to overall airport capacity and that any constraint on surface access can impact on the efficient functioning of an airport. Therefore, as airports continue to grow it is important that the surface access system does not hinder their expansion. Airports also need to address surface access issues in order to conform to air quality limits and car parking constraints which may be imposed.

The impact of employees on the surface access system must not be underestimated; the number of trips they make is of the same order of magnitude as passenger trips and a higher proportion of employees than passengers have been found to drive to airports. When addressing surface access issues airports are aware that they exist in a competitive market and need to offer a high level of service to passengers. As such they may be more willing to focus on employees with initiatives designed to reduce car use, not least because employees are ‘easier’ for the airport operator to target given that they have information on them, can communicate directly with them and their recurring travel patterns are understood.

As was stated in section 2.11, airports use a range of measures to try and reduce the number of employees travelling to the airport by private car but they tend to focus on ‘softer’

measures such as the promotion of public transport, car sharing and alternative work practices such as teleworking. While such strategies can be successful their impact is often reduced due to the nature of working at an airport in terms of the high proportion of shift workers who need to access the airport at unsociable hours when public transport may not be in operation and the fact that many job functions need to be performed at the airport and cannot be carried out from a remote location. It is only in the non-airport sector where

‘harder’ initiatives such as car parking charges or financial incentives direct to the user have been implemented and reported in research. As such, airports may be able to learn from the experiences of the non-airport sector.

The literature from the non-airport sector has shown that companies who offer free parking encourage their employees to drive to work and also drive on their own. This was reported to be the case in the airport sector where employers generally absorb the parking charges imposed by the airport operator rather than passing them on to staff.

A number of car parking instruments are available to help manage the demand for car parking including parking pricing, regulatory policies and parking cash out. Parking pricing is regarded as being a ‘first-best’ solution for reducing the number of people wishing to park and also has some impact on tackling traffic issues such as congestion, but the most effective

solutions can be seen to be when pricing and regulatory measures are used together. Parking cash out can also help to overcome the problems of offering employees free parking if they are designed with flexibility and the amount of money offered is enough of an incentive.

Overall parking cash out is regarded as being more effective at reducing the number of people parking when it is combined with other measures.

In terms of acceptability both parking pricing and regulatory measures are perceived as being unacceptable, both by key decision makers and by those who will be affected by the measure. They become more acceptable when combined with other measures to provide a package approach.

One thing which is apparent in many of the examples is that parking strategies are only introduced when there is a problem to be addressed and there is the existence of a significant catalyst for change such as congestion, a lack of parking spaces or the need to address transport issues in order to gain permission for development. The parking instruments addressed in this chapter are best suited to tackling specific parking problems rather than being a solution to wider issues such as network congestion and environmental pollution.

Overall, car parking measures can be seen to be an effective way of reducing the number of people travelling by car and they have a direct impact on the number of people parking, something which is of importance to Heathrow Airport given the parking cap of 42,000 spaces of which 17,500 are for employees.

One drawback of the literature was that some of the research into airport surface access is dated. As such a scoping study of four airports was conducted in order to assess the current situation at airports. This scoping study is contained in Chapter 3.

Chapter 3. Employee Car Parking at Airports: A Scoping